Thrid Review For Spring 2011 "Aria The Scarlet Ammo"

This review is only over the first half of Aria the Scarlet Ammo or known as Hidan No Aria in Japan. This Originated as a light-novel first published by media factory and written by Chūgaku Akamatsu In August 2008. The Light-Novel is still on going as of now which already has  nine volumes out so far that, have sold an estimated 1.9 million copies as of April 2011. A manga is also in publication which started in September 26th 2009 that have only 2 volumes out so far and is also published by Media Factory. The manga is being illustrated by Yoshino Koyoka. The anime adaptation is being done by J.C.Staff and currently only has twelve episodes slated for spring 2011. An ova has also been announced for release on December 21st 2011.

Now here is a brief summary of what I've watched so far. The plot heavily focuses on a high-school Student named Kinji Tōyama that wants to quit his job at the Butei. Kinji just wants to live a normal life without chaos and ever day mayhem.   Kinji lives alone in the boy’s dormitory number three off of Butei high-school campus and he is often visited by his Child-Hood Friend named Shirayuki Hotogi that has a pretty calm/cool personality. Hotogi is willing to cook, clean and do all "sorts of things for Kinji if you catch my drift."

Keep Your Loli In Place

Despite Kinji being another dense character when it comes to woman's feelings, there is one thing Kinji knows about Hotogi. She is prone to extreme jealousy if Hotogi looks at or happens to be around any other females. As you can guess this is going to fun, due in part because of our other feisty red headed female lead Aria. Now Aria happens to meet our male lead in the second half of episode. She runs into Kinji while he is being hunted down an unknown terrorist group known as the butei-killer. They send out use mounted machine guns that are controlled remotely on a segway?! These mounted guns are capable of shooting 10 rounds a second putting Kinji in a real tough spot, until he is saved by Aria who happens to be the top ace of the assault division. These said divisions of the butei are allowed to use fire arms to take down offenders and arrest criminals. "This is a huge plus in my book".

When Aria and Kinji are corned in a school gym equipment room it's here where Aria see's Kinji's true power thanks to her flat-chest and is able to get rid of the hacked machine like it was nothing. Aria then happens to get pissed off at Kinji for touching her chest. Hilarity is insured next in a three minute quarrel where Kinji shows her up and pisses her off even more. Now you would think they would go there separate ways after arguing, like this but guess what it's not going to happen. Aria tells Kinji to meet her outside by the school in quotation marks says, "become my slave Kinji". So aria is going to be our  typical Tsundere character that j.c. staff loves to turn out every season. 

Now the two female leads Aria and Hotogi are pretty spot on to their source counterparts but this isn't enough to save the show from just being average. Sure there are guns/explosions, suspenseful moments but none of it really amounts to anything so far. With six episodes of show are already done the show is already half over. Now they have at least introduced the main villain, Kinji does grow a small pair and stays with his job to protect Aria from harm. In episode six the two love rivals are introduced in thus bringing it down back down. There is no problem with introducing two love rivals in any art form but they way it was executed, sadly this series does poorly

When Aria and Hotogi first meet they get in to a Huge ass cat fight thus tearing up Kinji's dorm room. The break his table in half, throw sword through his TV, ripping his bed in half and many other possessions. Then to make up for it Hotogi is willing to jump on his dick right then and there, to show that she is sorry for upsetting him. This was just a poor/childish execution to do and no means warrants any good cause to do so. To make it cynical/funny Kinji does not even a love interest in any female as of yet so the bitch fight was for nothing but I suppose they needed to mark their territory all over his dorm room.

Now Personally I have just seen this happen way to much from J.C Staff's adoption's of light novels and manga as of late. By no means do I hate J.C. Staff they have produced some really good shows like Index and Excel-Saga. I really wish they would stop pandering to hard-core fans just to sell the series. The only other thing that pisses me off is that Kinji will confess to Aria on the tenth or eleventh episode. Thus making the series go in to full romance drama that will most likely end in a cliff hanger that will hinder on getting a second season based on bluray/dvd sales alone.

Despite all of these gripes I have pointed out Aria is still worth watching if you like loli/tsundere trope. I will admit to being a little a harsh, however I am getting to be an older anime fan so pick/choosing what I watch is no different from any other form of media. There is still something enjoyable to be found among the clichéd ridden writing apically the whole girls with guns aspect. I will admit to being a sucker for that type of set-up since I love guns and I love cute anime girls. However it does stop this series from being a cliché ridden mess, which still has some charm to it.

Age Rating: 13+

Music: 3/5

Animation: 3/5

Story: 3/5

Characters: 3/5

Overall Rating: 3/5

Aria Legal Stream 

-Cecil The Dark Knight